The corridor outside the integration wing hummed with the low drone of ventilation fans. Luke's wrists ached from the faint, lingering sting of the neural cuffs. He forced himself to breathe evenly, each inhale a struggle beneath the bruising pain in his ribs. Around him, Barrack Nine's recruits shuffled into the vast, sterile hall, eyes downcast: Veyd's cold gaze swept the room, Cole clenched his jaw, and Kieran's pale eyes tracked Luke with mild concern. Levi remained silent, a shadow against the gleaming white walls.
The integration wing's door hissed open. Med-techs in silver vests guided the cadets along steel rails toward a row of chrome pods. The first six pods housed Kieran, Veyd, Cole, Levi, and two empty shells reserved for Lira and Luke. Lira's pod stood still and dark, its interior lifeless—no soft lights flickered, no hums emanated. Luke's jaw clenched. The second shell slid forward as the capsule above it lowered.
"Arlen. Step inside."
Luke breathed out and moved forward, heart hammering. The pod's interior glowed with soft violet runes, fractals dancing across the glass in intricate patterns. He slid onto the narrow steel bench, and the technician clipped a thin metal ring around his wrist. His brand pulsed beneath his fatigues, already attuned to the pod's runic matrix. A slender probe—no thicker than a finger—descended toward his forearm. He swallowed hard as it pierced his skin. Cold exploded through his veins.
"Array designation?" the technician's voice was impersonal, detached.
"Gun-array," Luke replied, voice a hoarse rasp. He had spent sleepless nights debating between Melee-array and Array proper, but Gun-array promised reflex overclock—critical for ranged combat. He pictured a holo-overlay of enemy heat signatures, reflex arcs mapping out trajectories in microseconds. If array was an art, then gun-array was his brushstroke: fast, precise, lethal.
The pod's interior lights flared white-hot. Luke's vision swam. Runes spiraled across the glass in ancient patterns—some reminiscent of the Dead Sea Scroll designs, though warped with new codes. The first jolt hammered his nervous system. Breathe. He forced air into his lungs as the second probe plunged into the base of his skull. A torrent of images seized his mind: swirling runic circuits, layered over fractal codes that pulsed like living things. He saw gear teeth turning, mech armatures flexing, soldiers falling in slow motion. Then it stilled. The runes dimmed. The probes retracted.
Luke lay panting, the bench cold beneath his back. The cuffs unlatched, and he sat up, trembling. He flexed his fingers—his pulse-thread dagger sheath warmed as connections with his bio-core shifted. He blinked at the glass: the runes shrank, folding into nothing. The pod's lights returned to a gentle violet glow.
"Report to Calibration Station," the technician intoned, swiveling on her heel without looking back. Luke swung his legs out and stood, legs wobbly. He passed Kieran, who'd just staggered out of his own pod, chest heaving. Veyd slipped past, arms folded, as if unaffected. Cole stumbled, wiping vomit from his lips. Levi watched from the far end, brand pulsing in cold light.
Draining the pod was only the first step. Arrays needed calibration—fine-tuning the neural subroutines woven into bone and blood—with real-world tests. The calibration ring, a circular holo-interface on the floor, awaited. Luke stepped onto it. The ring flared to life, casting golden glyphs across his boots, then circled his head mid-air with a shimmering band of arcane light.
"Commencing calibration," a disembodied voice echoed. "Gun-array baseline. Visual acuity: assessing."
Immediately, Luke's senses sharpened. The calibration ring fed him data: a holo-screen before his eyes as if floating on his retina, distance markers flickered, threat arcs pulsed. A training drone loomed into view in the calibration zone—a skeletal mech unit with jointed arms and a rifle-like barrel for a right hand. Its ocular lens tracked Luke's movement.
Breathe.
Luke raised a hand, fingers curled around an imaginary trigger. Reflex lit his neural pathways like wires igniting. Before the drone's barrel could pivot fully, Luke fired—an explosive pulse of Aether-charged energy from his brand into the pup. The synthetic metal shell buckled in a spray of sparks, and the drone collapsed.
The calibration ring flashed green. "Visual and reflex integration: 0.13 seconds. Threat neutralized."
Luke exhaled in relief, heart thudding. He moved toward a second drone—this one heavier, with reinforced armor plating. Its twin barrels whined, targeting him. He crouched, sliding beneath the arc of firing lines. The holo-overlay marked safe lanes. He fired again, two crisp shots, and the drone's barrels tore off in molten arcs.
The ring's light turned solid blue. "Gun-array calibration successful. Proceed to Station 3."
Luke stepped off as the ring collapsed. His knees felt like jelly. He caught Kieran's eye: Kieran gave a stiff nod. Neither spoke. They both knew a wrong step here meant a compromised array—failure. No one could be paraded as a broken tool.
Luke staggered to Station 3, where a Mecha-Simulator waited—an exoskeleton frame rigged with resistance bands. He donned the haptic rig: weight strapped to his limbs, every muscle leveraged to simulate carrying a combat mech's armor. They'd test heavy-weapons drills—firing Aether-mortars at moving targets. The rig added twenty kilograms to his frame.
Calibrators input commands. A holo-target burst into view: a medium walker, three meters tall, slithering across a holographic urban landscape. It bellowed anti-infantry missiles toward Luke's position. The simulator fed consequences to his limbs—vibrations, coordinate data, recoil force. Luke opened fire, holding his energy pulses until just before the mortar would strike.
In that microsecond, his brand pulsed, energy roaring, and he sent a volley of concentrated blasts that slammed into the Walker's left leg. Screeching hydraulics. The mech lurched, stumbled, before toppling. Sparks rained, and the holo-walker evaporated into nothing.
Calibration concluded. The rig's bands loosened. Luke sagged. A stood technician descended, scanning his brand. "Array full activation: ninety-seven percent. Minor latency under extreme load. Advise caution during extended engagements."
Luke nodded mutely. He still felt lightheaded. The pod's ejection, the drilling, the heavy rig—it was a baptism by fire. But something deeper burned within him: anticipation. Gun-array was more than a weapon; it was a promise. After Lira, after everything, he needed power. He needed clarity.
He stumbled out into the corridor. Kieran was waiting. Their eyes met. Kieran's expression mingled relief and envy. "How do you feel?"
"Like I just held lightning," Luke rasped. "And lived."
Kieran cracked a grin. "Good enough for me."
They headed back to the barracks for debriefing. Along the way, Luke counted the steps—eight, nine, ten. His mind was uncharacteristically clear: spatial coordinates, blueprint overlays, enemy flanking vectors. The Dead Sea Scroll patterns he'd glimpsed inside the pod merged with the calibration data. If memory was the first step, now came application.
They reassembled in the common hall, where Tetrus and Rael awaited. Tetrus's eyes flicked over Luke's brand, now humming with stabilized power. "Primus Arlen. Impressive. You'll be assigned to the live-fire drills later today. Don't disappoint."
Rael added, "Next week, you'll be deployed on a field exercise. Be prepared."
Luke nodded, chest tightening. A field exercise meant encountering real conflict—kill or be killed. He swallowed. Exactly what I needed.
---
Meanwhile, down the hallway, a sliding door to Pod Six opened. A squad of med-techs wheeled Lira's stasis pod into a sublevel lab. Lira stirred inside the transparent shell: her skin was ghost-white, veins rippling black beneath a sheen of frost. The Black Ruin Sequence pulsed like a malignant star. Technicians reached in, injecting nanite-suppressant doses. Lira's eyes fluttered open, revealing orbs like swirling oil slicks.
Through a cracked side panel, a crouching figure watched: tall, cloaked, face obscured beneath a ragged hood. He tapped his wrist console, sending a coded signal. "Target's consciousness stabilized. Ready for extraction."
Lira's lips moved, but only a choking hiss emerged. The cloaked spy slipped closer, retrieving a slender injector from beneath his cloak. He pressed it into the glass: a nanite-inhibitor dart that dissolved instantly, sending a pulse that destabilized the pod's containment field. Sirens hadn't reached the lab yet—exactly what he'd planned.
Lira's eyes snapped open wider. She recognized the voice—faintly—months ago, in a nightmarish memory. Something about this man felt… not enemy. He flicked a small holo-emitter near her brand. The binding sigils glowed violet for a heartbeat—and then—flickered out. Lira gasped, the first full breath she'd drawn in weeks. The Black Ruin storm within her stilled, momentarily, as if torn between rebellion and relief.
"Come with me if you want to live," the spy whispered. He tapped his console: "Signal sent."
Lira's black veins retracted as the pod's side panel hissed open. She lurched out, weak but determined. The spy caught her elbow, guiding her through a maze of biolabs and biohazard zones. Outside, a gravity elevator descended into shadows. Lira stumbled, cutting her palm on a rusted railing, but she didn't stop.
As they slipped beyond the last guard post, Lira saw the curve of the Academy's outer wall, glittering with runic turrets. Above, rain spattered the compound's shields like gunfire. She exhaled—her glimmering eyes reflected the world. For a moment, hope flickered.
The spy looked back. "They'll be onto us soon. Stay focused."
Lira nodded. She didn't know who this man was or why he'd saved her, but in that instant, she believed. She was no longer a test subject; she was a fugitive, a living weapon.
---
The training yard thrummed to life hours later. Luke, Kieran, Cole, Veyd, and Levi stood at attention as Rael strode across the field. Distant tower cranes loomed. Mechas—decommissioned but still imposing—lined the perimeter. A monorail track curved overhead, transporting armored sentries in half-submersible pods.
"Today," Rael bellowed, "you'll test your arrays in live combat against our newest adversary—rank-9 rebel cell. Don't expect mercy."
A section of the yard's floor rose to reveal a holo-scene: a simulated Western Borderland—burned-out villages, abandoned mecha wrecks, collapsed power pylons. Rebels had infiltrated. The goal: neutralize the cell, capture any intel, and return to the base.
Luke's brand pulsed. He knelt, adjusting his pulse-thread dagger and Gun-array calibrator. A holo-visor flickered to life: target markers guised as friendlies. The Dead Sea Scroll code overlaid predictions—enemy positions, likely ambush points, vector paths.
"Deploy!" Rael's command echoed.
Luke sprinted forward, reflexes overclocked. The world became a blur: rubble, scorched earth, twisted metal. He saw a rank-9 rebel—a woman in carbon-fiber armor with a helm shaped like a hawk—rising behind a collapsed wall, aiming a modified pulse rifle. His brand flared violet. The holo-overlay circled her position. He fired: two bolts of Aether-charged plasma soared, striking her rifle's barrel. Sparks flew. She blocked the second bolt with her gauntleted forearm, the shockwave sending her sprawling.
"Target eliminated," Luke whispered, stepping over her fallen form. The Dead Sea Scroll's gift: instant ballistic prediction.
Moments later, Cole swung a monologue-frame blade, cleaving a rebel drone in two. Kieran vaulted over debris, his Moon Cyclones carving arcs of silver. Levi slipped like a phantom, slipping a combat knife between a rebel infantryman's ribs before the man could draw a cry.
Veyd advanced too slowly for Luke's taste, cutting down two rebels with precise longsword strokes. But one rebel, a massive brute in ex-Federation power armor, charged Veyd—rocket boosters igniting. Veyd barely sidestepped, then slashed his Voltfang across the booster, sending the armorjack stumbling.
Luke's Gun-array clicked: new threat identified—an MK-VII hover-drone creeping up behind Veyd. He pivoted, firing a round off-axis. The drum's whine silenced, and the drone collapsed in a shower of sparks.
The battle raged. A squad of rank-9 rebels fired runic grenades—seeking target prediction in Luke's overlay. He rolled, closing distance in a heartbeat. Reflexspear: his brand output a concentrated burst of Aether through the butt of his rifle, smashing the grenade in midair. Gravity-thrown fragments rained harmlessly.
On high ground, a VIP rebel—scarred, muscular, bio-core visible beneath shredded uniform—lofted a grenade launcher. Luke felt a pulse in his brand: arc radiation. The barrel's temperature spiked. He sprinted up a scorched engine block, reaching within meters. A swift arc of the rifle's barrel caught the launcher's stock: an ignited grenade spun back into the rebel's midriff. He gouged his throat in silent agony before dropping.
Moments later, Rael's horn sounded: "Mission complete."
Luke dropped, chest heaving. Kieran and Cole collected the remaining rank-9 captives. Veyd stood over the hulking power-armor brute he'd felled, breathing hard. Levi slipped back into the shadows—unseen, efficient.
Rael's voice echoed: "You've done well. But performance was expected. Learn from this—not a victory, but another step."
Luke stood, head clearing. The Dead Sea Scroll gift had saved lives—they'd captured intel caches scattered around. Yet Kieran caught Luke's eye: concern flickered there. "You pushed too hard," he mouthed. Luke shook his head: "Needed to close out the target." Needed power. The salvo of battle left an adrenaline high, but also a hollow ache: no survivors to question, only the sick-bay's waiting pods.
---
Back in the barracks that evening, Luke lay on his bunk, staring at the holo-mirror's reflection. The calibration ring's data still flickered in his vision: enemy trajectories, pulse-rates, Aether signatures. His brand throbbing. A knock came at the door.
Rael entered, expression unreadable. "Good job today. Field kills: twenty-two. Minimal collateral."
Luke sat up. "We didn't get intel. Prisoners were dead or couldn't talk."
Rael crossed his arms. "Rank-9 rebels don't surrender. Remember that." He paused. "Tomorrow, you'll join the initial recon into the Northern Front sector. The High Martial wants eyes on the Iron Bastion."
Luke nodded, though his gut twisted. The Northern Front: shadowed rumors of unseen controllers, spies in every corner. No place for mistakes.
"Get some rest," Rael said. He turned. "Dismissed."
Luke lay back, scanning the dark ceiling. Memory crystals' maps twisted behind his eyes: Dead Sea Scroll code, battlefield overlays. This is only the beginning. His phone-sized holo-anchor on the side table glowed: a coded message from the spy, delivered through a hidden sub-channel.
"Meet me at Med-Bay 3 at 0200. You'll want to see this."
He frowned. Med-Bay 3—where Lira had been treated. He sat up. She's awake. He pressed his hand to his brand. A quiet hum answered. Tomorrow, I'll find her. And whatever it took—live or die—he'd protect her.
Sleep came in fitful waves.